But we are denied the pleasure of using the word in that honest sense, because of another which has been given to it.  To the ordinary man “Religion” means, not the soul’s longing for growth, the “hunger and thirst after righteousness”, but certain forms in which this hunger has manifested itself in history, and prevails today throughout the world; that is to say, institutions having fixed dogmas and “revelations”, creeds and rituals, with an administering caste claiming supernatural sanction.  By such institutions the moral strivings of the race, the affections of childhood and the aspirations of youth are made the prerogatives and stock in trade of ecclesiastical hierarchies.  It is the thesis of this book that “Religion” in this sense is a source of income to parasites, and the natural ally of every form of oppression and exploitation.

If by my jesting at “Bootstrap-lifting” I have wounded some dear prejudice of the reader, let me endeavor to speak in a more persuasive voice.  I am a man who has suffered, and has seen the suffering of others; I have devoted my life to analyzing the causes of the suffering, to find out if it be necessary and fore-ordained, or if by any chance there be a way of escape for future generations.  I have found that the latter is the case; the suffering is needless, it can with ease and certainty be banished from the earth.  I know this with the knowledge of science—­in the same way that the navigator of a ship knows his latitude and longitude, and the point of the compass to which he must steer in order to reach the port.

Come, reader, let us put aside prejudice, and the terrors of the cults of the unknown.  The power which made us has given us a mind, and the impulse to its use; let us see what can be done with it to rid the earth of its ancient evils.  And do not be troubled if at the outset this book seems to be entirely “destructive”.  I assure you that I am no crude materialist, I am not so shallow as to imagine that our race will be satisfied with a barren rationalism.  I know that the old symbols came out of the heart of man because they corresponded to certain needs of the heart of man.  I know that new symbols will be found, corresponding more exactly to the needs of our time.  If here I set to work to tear down an old and ramshackle building, it is not from blind destructfulness, but as an architect who means to put a new and sounder structure in its place.  Before we part company I shall submit the blue print of that new home of the spirit.

* * * * *

#Book one#

#The Church of the Conquerors#

  I saw the Conquerors riding by
      With trampling feet of horse and men: 
  Empire on empire like the tide
      Flooded the world and ebbed again;

  A thousand banners caught the sun,
      And cities smoked along the plain,
  And laden down with silk and gold
      And heaped up pillage groaned the wain.